Mount Vernon residents try to cope with slayings

Associated Press

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio

The first indication that something had gone terribly wrong in this tiny Ohio town came when a Dairy Queen manager went to check on a friend who didn’t show up for work.

The manager, Valerie Haythorn, told The Associated Press on Friday that when she drove by last week, the lights were on at the home where Tina Herrmann lived with her two children. Herrmann’s truck also was in the driveway and, thinking all was well, Haythorn kept driving.

When Herrmann missed a second day, Haythorn drove back to the house — and this time she went inside.

Haythorn said she climbed in the back window because the front door was locked. Once inside, she discovered a significant amount of blood.

“It was enough blood there that I knew there was a problem,” she said. “Nobody cut their finger in that house.”

Haythorn immediately called authorities. The search for four missing people began in earnest after her Nov. 11 visit.

Three days later, Herr- mann’s 13-year-old daughter, Sarah Maynard, was found bound and gagged — but alive — in the basement of a home. On Thursday, the search reached a tragic end when authorities found the bodies of Herrmann; her 11-year-old son, Cody; and her 41-year-old friend, Stephanie Sprang, stuffed into garbage bags and hidden in a hollow tree.

Gary Ludwig, a supervisor with Ohio’s Division of Wildlife, said wildlife staff cut down the tree Friday. He said Knox County authorities wanted to remove it out of respect for the family and so that it wouldn’t become “a sightseeing thing.”

Knox County Sheriff David Barber said investigators were led to the bodies by Matthew Hoffman, an unemployed tree-trimmer accused of kidnapping the girl and keeping her for nearly four days in the basement of his home in Mount Vernon, about 40 miles northeast of Columbus.

It was unclear how the three others died — or how someone managed to put their bodies inside the hollow tree. Autopsies were conducted Friday, and the county coroner said the results were expected today.

At the Dairy Queen, Herr- mann’s friends are trying to help in the only way they know how — by selling Blizzards. Today, $1 from each Blizzard sold will be donated to a fund for Sarah Maynard and Sprang’s children.